Sandie Shaw: 'My husband thought he’d killed me'

Sandie Shaw has revealed that the real reason behind her decision to retire was a life threatening car crash in France earlier this year.

The 66-year-old singer and therapist was in a 4x4 driven by her third husband, Dr Tony Bedford, when “from nowhere, a car came on the other side of the road, and the next thing I knew, the car was rolling, and my seat belt had come undone, so I was rolling around in this 4x4, it was almost like free fall. My husband thought he’d killed me.”

Shaw was badly cut and had to be taken to hospital. “The whole of my face had opened up, all the top of my head, and I was just covered in blood. And I couldn’t breathe for this blood. I’ve never felt such pain in my life. I remember thinking ‘I’m so glad I never had the face lift, if this is anything like how it feels!’ That did go through my head.”

Shaw now wears her hair with a fringe across her forehead, to cover an unsightly scar. “This guy managed to sow me back together. I was not able to do anything for such a long time because I was purple, blue, and this huge scar on my face.”

She has considered a skin graft but decided against it because the scar represents a pivotal moment in her life. “I just took a break and I thought I’m not happy with what I’m doing, I want to change it. I decided my life needed to move on a bit, and everything that has happened since then has kind of reaffirmed that.”

Shaw first announced her retirement in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in April, in which she said she wanted it to be “a really nice goodbye”. Talking to the Telegraph’s pop critic, Neil McCormick, she claimed that, having completed a tour in 2011 with Jools Holland, she felt it was a great place to finish. “I looked up into the starry sky and said, 'That’s it. I’m pleased with what I did. That’s a great finishing point.’ And that was that.”

However, in a further interview with Neil McCormick for Needle Time on Vintage TV, Shaw reveals that it was the car accident that finally made up her mind. She also admits that she hadn’t intended to make her retirement public.

Sandie Shaw chats to Neil McCormick (Roger Goodgroves)

She has been overseeing the re-release of her entire back catalogue, and a new best of compilation Long Live Love, on Salvo records. “We put this album out as a way of saying good bye. I was going to do it really quietly.” However, during her Telegraph interview, “it just popped out, what I’d been thinking or planning, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”

Neil McCormick’s interview with Sandie Shaw will be broadcast on Vintage TV, Tuesday May 28, at 10pm.